| This work is a study of the role of personal identities in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Throughout this long novel, characters undergo constant changes in their self-definitions, in their identifications with others, and in the ways in which they are known to others, all of which leads to a world full of unstable identities. In this dissertation, I investigate several of the most significant journeys of personal identity in the novel in order to discover the causes and effects of these changes and come to an understanding of the processes involved in personal identity and identity change in the world of Les Miserables.;In this endeavor, the primary method is close analysis of individual characters as they appear in the text. While it is based on character studies, however, this study is organized according to the processes that the characters undergo. Therefore, the first four chapters are focused on pairs of characters linked by similar structures, processes, or theoretical bases: Mabeuf and Marius reveal the fine line between personal and political identifications, Javert and Gillenormand take divergent paths from the common starting point of self-definition against an undesirable other, Fantine and Gavroche experience the effects of otherness, and Thenardier and Eponine explore the boundaries between identity and non-identity. The final chapter is dedicated to Jean Valjean and his journey through a variety of identities in search of the honnetete to which he is committed in the novel's first pages. Although theories of identity drawn from various sources occasionally serve as a conceptual framework or support, these are secondary to a close reading of the characters as they appear in the novel.;This exploration of personal identity leads to a better understanding not only of the processes involved in it, but also of its place in the overall universe of Les Miserables. A coherent and acceptable identity reveals itself to be an important requirement for a character's survival, and its instability brings about misere and death as certainly as material want. The dynamics of identity explored here are an integral part of the social universe of this social novel. |
